Chapter 8
The cold hit differently after the warmth of the diner. Sarah pulled her collar up and told herself that was why her face felt warm.
She was the sheriff. She had a case, a jurisdiction, a badge that meant something, and a man beside her who was very possibly about to walk back out of her life the same way he’d walked out of it the first time. None of that was complicated. All of it should have been enough.
But somehow it wasn’t landing the way it was supposed to.
She’d laughed twice in there. Properly laughed.
Walter’s terrible jokes had never pulled that sound from her.
And she’d spent an embarrassing stretch of the meal trying not to be distracted by his hands.
Strong, calloused, a thin scar tracking one knuckle.
Hands that looked like they knew exactly what they were doing, with anything they touched.
She cleared her throat, aimed her voice at something professional, and reached for the one thing guaranteed to put both of them back where they belonged.
“So,” she said, once they’d cleared the diner’s window and the chance of Louisa reading lips through the glass. “Cord.”
He shifted gears beside her—a small change in his breathing, his shoulders dropping into something more deliberate. Good. That was the version of him she knew how to handle.
“What about him?”
“This isn’t just another fugitive to you. I got that much back at the cannery.” She kept her eyes forward, her breath fogging in front of her. “So why’s this one different?”
The quiet stretched out too long.
“Because I should’ve caught him the first time.”
Sarah glanced over. Something had slipped. She wasn’t looking at the marshal anymore. “The first time?”
For a second, she thought he might answer. Then whatever had surfaced disappeared again.
“Forget it.” His mouth firmed.
“Hudson—”
“I said forget it.”
He looked away from her, his breath clouding the air.
“Sarah!” Ryder crossed the lot toward them, Ellie’s mittened hand engulfed in his. She ran to keep pace with her dad’s longer stride, blonde pigtails escaping a hat with a wobbly pink pom-pom.
“Tantie!” Ellie broke free the second they were close enough and launched herself at Sarah’s legs with full-body commitment.
Sarah caught her and swung her up onto one hip.
“Hey, bug.” She pressed a kiss to the cold pink curve of Ellie’s cheek. “You being good for Daddy?”
Ellie wriggled one mitten free and produced a stuffed whale from inside her coat. Bright blue and visibly over-loved.
Sarah smiled. “Who’s this?”
Ellie looked horrified. “Blubbs.”
“Hello, Blubbs.” Sarah shook a flipper.
Ryder shook his head, hands on hips. “Blubbs has been introduced to everyone in town.”
Ellie hugged the whale. “Blubbs likes marsha-mallows.”
Ryder made a sound that suggested this information had been delivered to him many, many times. “Blubbs does not need marshmallows.”
Ellie hugged Blubbs tighter. “Me going for hot choc-lit. Marsha-mallows.”
“Wow. Marshmallows. Sounds delicious.”
“Tantie, marsha-mallows?”
“I’m sorry, sweetheart. Auntie Sarah can’t today. I’m busy with work.”
Ryder’s attention swiveled to Hudson. His expression morphed into recognition.
“No way.” Ryder’s mouth pulled sideways in a grin. “Hudson Kane.”
“Ryder.”
“You got old.” Ryder closed the distance, and they shook hands, the clasp turning into a brief, wordless shoulder grip. “Last time I saw you, you were teaching Wyatt how to gut a fish wrong so Mom would do it for both of you.”
“That was one time.”
Ryder chuckled. “Worked, though.”
“And you got a kid.”
Ryder’s grin grew. He wobbled Ellie’s pom-pom. “Being a dad is the best thing ever. Whatcha doing back in Aurora Cove?”
“Work,” Hudson said.
“Right.” Ryder’s gaze moved from Hudson to Sarah. His eyebrows climbed.
Sarah sighed. “No.”
Ryder looked delighted. “I didn’t even say anything.”
“You were about to.”
Ryder’s eyes dropped to the credentials clipped at Hudson’s belt. “Deputy U.S. Marshal, huh?”
“Something like that.”
His grin skewed. “Mom’s gonna love that.”
“Daddy.” Ellie had gone rigid against Sarah’s hip, entirely consumed by a crisis of cosmic importance, mittened hand jabbing toward the diner’s pink-lit window. “Marsha-mallows. Blubbs need marsha-mallows. Lots.”
“We’ll ask Louisa.”
“Lots, Daddy.” Ellie wriggled, and Sarah set her back on her feet.
Whatever Ryder had been circling around evaporated entirely, engulfed by the gravitational pull of Ellie’s marshmallow crisis.
“Good seeing you, man.” Ryder was already turning, Ellie’s hand finding his again, the pull of the diner door and its promise of cinnamon-sugar warmth doing what it always did to anyone under the age of four. “You sticking around a while?”
“For now.”
“Good.” Ryder’s eyes found Sarah’s for just a second—a small flag planted somewhere she’d have to deal with later, probably over a beer with Caleb smirking in the background.
“Bye-bye, Tantie.” Ellie blew her a kiss from three feet away.
Hudson watched Ellie disappear through the diner door, a softness in his eyes she hadn’t witnessed before. The lot went quiet again as the diner door swung shut.
Sarah turned, suddenly aware Hudson wasn’t watching the diner anymore. He was watching her.
“What?”
“Nothing.” He looked away first, out toward the street, jaw doing that thing he did when he wasn’t going to say what he was actually thinking. “I forgot you were good with kids.”
Sarah glanced over. “Forgot?”
“A lot of things, it seems.” The corner of his mouth sloped upward. “You used to organize half the neighborhood.”
“That’s a gross exaggeration.”
“No.”
“There were, like, six kids.”
“You had sign-up sheets.”
Sarah groaned. “I was twelve.”
“And color-coded teams.” His face was way too handsome when he smiled.
Why was she even noticing that?
“Those weren’t teams.”
“Sarah.” His eyebrows rose.
“Fine.” She kicked at a patch of frozen gravel. “They were color-coded teams.”
She pulled her collar up another inch against the wind and Hudson’s widening grin.
“Right.” She started walking again, back toward the truck, because standing in a parking lot being looked at like that by Hudson Kane was not a sustainable long-term strategy for getting through this day, or this entire situation generally.
Hudson fell into step beside her and matched her stride.
They weren’t touching.
The space between them felt crowded anyway.